he darted forrud, an’ took no notice o’ nobody.  ‘What’s up now,’ thought Betty; an’ hoo ran after him.  When hoo geet up-stairs th’ owd lad had retten croppen into bed; an’ he wur ill’d up, e’er th’ yed.  So Betty turned th’ quilt deawn, an’ hoo said.  ‘Whatever’s to do witho, James?’ ’Howd te noise!’ said Thwittler, pooin’ th’ clooas o’er his yed again, ’howd te noise!  I’ll play no moor at yon shop!’ an’ th’ bed fair wackert again; he ‘re i’ sich a fluster.  ‘Mun I make tho a saup o’ gruel?’ said Betty.  ‘Gruel be ——!’ said Thwittler, poppin’ his yed out o’ th’ blankets.  ‘Didto ever yer ov onybody layin’ the devil wi’ meighl-porritch?’ An’ then he poo’d th’ blanket o’er his yed again.  ‘Where’s thi fiddle?’ said Betty.  But, as soon as Thwittler yerd th’ fiddle name’t, he gav a sort of wild skrike, an’ crope lower down into bed.”

“Well, well,” said the old woman, laughing, and laying her knitting down, “aw never yerd sich a tale i’ my life.”

“Stop, Nanny,” said Skedlock, “yo’st yer it out, now.”

“Well, yo seen, this mak o’ wark went on fro week to week, till everybody geet weary on it; an’ at last, th’ chapel-wardens summon’t a meetin’ to see if they couldn’t raise a bit o’ daycent music, for Sundays, beawt o’ this trouble.  An’ they talked back an’ forrud about it a good while.  Tum o’th Dingle recommended ’em to have a Jew’s harp, an’ some triangles.  But Bobby Nooker said, ’That’s no church music!  Did onybody ever yer “Th’ Owd Hundred,” played upov a triangle?’ Well, at last they agreed that th’ best way would be to have some sort of a barrel-organ—­one o’ thoose that they winden up at th’ side, an’ then they play’n o’ theirsel, beawt ony fingerin’ or blowin’.  So they ordert one made, wi’ some favour-ite tunes in—­’Burton,’ and ‘Liddy,’ an’ ‘French,’ an’ ‘Owd York,’ an’ sich like.  Well, it seems that Robin o’ Sceawter’s, th’ carrier—­his feyther went by th’ name o’ ‘Cowd an’ Hungry;’ he’re a quarryman by trade; a long, hard, brown-looking felley, wi’ e’en like gig-lamps, an’ yure as strung as a horse’s mane.  He looked as if he’d bin made out o’ owd dur-latches, an’ reawsty nails.  Robin, th’ carrier, is his owdest lad; an’ he fawurs a chap at’s bin brought up o’ yirth-bobs an’ scaplins.  Well, it seems that Robin brought this box-organ up fro th’ town in his cart o’th Friday neet; an’ as luck would have it, he had to bring a new weshin’-machine at th’ same time, for owd Isaac Buckley, at th’ Hollins Farm.  When he geet th’ organ in his cart, they towd him to be careful an’ keep it th’ reet side up; and he wur to mind an’ not shake it mich, for it wur a thing that wur yezzy thrut eawt o’ flunters.  Well, I think Robin mun ha’ bin fuddle’t or summat that neet.  But I dunnot know; for he’s sich a bowster-yed, mon, that aw’ll be sunken if aw think he knows th’ difference between a weshin’-machine an’ a church organ, when he’s at th’ sharpest.  But let that leet as it will.  What dun yo think but th’ blunderin’ foo,—­at after o’ that had bin said to him,—­went and ‘liver’t th’ weshin’-machine at th’ church, an’ th’ organ at th’ Hollins Farm.”